In praise of ... pubs

Dr Johnson observed that "there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn". Both he and Samuel Pepys, for whom the pub was "the heart of England" , would be nonplussed by the decline in happiness implied by the crisis in the industry today. Already buffeted by smoking bans, cut-price alcohol in supermarkets and higher duties in the pre-budget report, pubs now face a severe recession in addition to something that would need to be explained even to Dr Johnson: the use of securitisation to finance leveraged expansion by the big pub-owning corporations. Earlier this week Jon Moulton, the private equity specialist, warned that a good chunk of the industry's £20bn debt was "unsustainable". Britain's 47,000 pubs can be traced back to the inns along the roads that the Romans built. They became so popular that in AD965 King Edgar is said to have limited them to one per village. Now many villages are facing the prospect of no pub at all (and maybe no post office either) as the cumulative effect of their woes takes its toll. It is perhaps too much to expect a government pub strategy, to complement the burgeoning policies for all the other troubled sectors. But as well as providing much-needed local employment, pubs are part of our heritage and an essential part of the vibrancy of life. Politicians don't often have an opportunity to increase or preserve happiness. They will ignore the plight of pubs at their peril.